If it were certain that there was no hope for the unhappy Euphrosyne, one trusted that she might at least be the only victim.  But Ali, professing to follow the advice of some severe reformers who wished to restore decent morality, arrested at the same time fifteen ladies belonging to the best Christian families in Janina.  A Wallachian, named Nicholas Janco, took the opportunity to denounce his own wife, who was on the point of becoming a mother, as guilty of adultery, and handed her also over to the pacha.  These unfortunate women were brought before Ali to undergo a trial of which a sentence of death was the foregone conclusion.  They were then confined in a dungeon, where they spent two days of misery.  The third night, the executioners appeared to conduct them to the lake where they were to perish.  Euphrosyne, too exhausted to endure to the end, expired by the way, and when she was flung with the rest into the dark waters, her soul had already escaped from its earthly tenement.  Her body was found the next day, and was buried in the cemetery of the monastery of Saints-Anargyres, where her tomb, covered with white iris and sheltered by a wild olive tree, is yet shown.

Mouktar was returning from his expedition when a courier from his brother Veli brought him a letter informing him of these events.  He opened it.  “Euphrosyne!” he cried, and, seizing one of his pistols, fired it at the messenger, who fell dead at his feet,—­“Euphrosyne, behold thy first victim!” Springing on his horse, he galloped towards Janina.  His guards followed at a distance, and the inhabitants of all the villages he passed fled at his approach.  He paid no attention to them, but rode till his horse fell dead by the lake which had engulfed Euphrosyne, and then, taking a boat, he went to hide his grief and rage in his own palace.

Ali, caring little for passion which evaporated in tears and cries, sent an order to Mouktar to appear before him at once.  “He will not kill you,” he remarked to his messenger, with a bitter smile.  And, in fact, the man who a moment before was furiously raging and storming against his father, as if overwhelmed by this imperious message, calmed down, and obeyed.

“Come hither, Mouktar,” said the pacha, extending his murderous hand to be kissed as soon as his son appeared.  “I shall take no notice of your anger, but in future never forget that a man who braves public opinion as I do fears nothing in the world.  You can go now; when your troops have rested from their march, you can come and ask for orders.  Go, remember what I have said.”

Mouktar retired as submissively as if he had just received pardon for some serious crime, and found no better consolation than to spend the night with Veli in drinking and debauchery.  But a day was to come when the brothers, alike outraged by their father, would plot and carry out a terrible vengeance.

However, the Porte began to take umbrage at the continual aggrandisement of the Pacha of Janina.  Not daring openly to attack so formidable a vassal, the sultan sought by underhand means to diminish his power, and under the pretext that Ali was becoming too old for the labour of so many offices, the government of Thessaly was withdrawn from him, but, to show that this was not done in enmity, the province was entrusted to his nephew, Elmas Bey, son of Suleiman and Chainitza.